Mae’r Sefydliad Bevan wedi paratoi adroddiad ar gyfer Anabledd Cymru yn dangos effaith diwygiadau lles ar bobl anabl yng Nghymru. Mae’r fersiwn Cymraeg ar gael yma: Cap mewn llaw

The Bevan Foundation has prepared a report on behalf of Disability Wales showing the impact of welfare reform on disabled people. The English version is available here: Cap in hand

Beth ddywedodd pleidiau’r glymblaid am hyn cyn yr etholiad diwethaf?

What did the parties of the coalition say about this before the election?

Ceidwadwyr/Conservatives:

 We will reassess all current claimants of Incapacity Benefit. Those found fit for work will be transferred onto Jobseeker’s Allowance. Recipients of Incapacity Benefit who are genuinely disabled will continue to receive the financial support to which they are entitled (p. 15)

We … have made a pledge to … protect … disability living allowance and attendance allowance (p. 42)

Y Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol / The Liberal Democrats:

Liberal Democrats want to make the tax and benefits system fair, so that everyone, be they young or old, can afford to get by (p. 13)

Reforming Winter Fuel Payments to extend them to all severely disabled people, paid for by delaying age-related Winter Fuel Payments until people reach 65. (p. 18)

 Mae yna hefyd rhestr o’r newididau a’u costau ar tudalen 96 ond does dim byd o gwbl am torri budd-daliadau i’r anabl.

There is also a list of the changes and their costs on page 96 but nothing at all about cutting benefits to the disabled.

 Addewidion wedi’u torri unwaith eto

Broken promises yet again

The call for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU has always been a transitional demand. It isn’t what anyone actually wants, it is just a more inclusive way of demanding withdrawal. While withdrawal itself is clearly lunacy, “how can you refuse to let the British people decide” has a ring of truth to it. Of course a further referendum would be needed if a Government was proposing that we withdraw – and indeed there will need to be a referendum if there is a new treaty which hands further powers to Brussels.

But David Cameron’s promise of a referendum during the next Parliament was never anything more than a tactic to relieve the pressure from his backbenchers and from UKIP. He wanted a plausible explanation of why we cannot have a referendum right now and “because we need time to negotiate changes” is the best he could come up with. It is the classic case of “Jam tomorrow”: it allows the Conservatives to appeal at the next General Election to both Eurosecptics and Europhiles rather than making a clear decision.

As is made clear in today’s Guardian, not only does the demand to re-open negotiations on the Lisbon Treaty ignore the real issues being considered elsewhere in the EU, David Cameron hasn’t actually told anyone what it is that he wants to renegotiate:

There is also exasperation in EU capitals that Cameron has declined, as yet, to flesh out what kind of changes he wants or which policy areas he hopes to renegotiate. The puzzlement extends to British officials and business. A delegation from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) was in Brussels on Monday and sounded out the European Commission about what Downing Street wanted because they have not been told. Similar puzzlement surrounds the battery of EU police, justice, and security measures that Britain needs to renegotiate, a policy recently severely criticised by a House of Lords inquiry as damaging the British national interest.

Under the Lisbon treaty Britain has to opt out of more than 130 EU police and justice instruments en bloc and then re-negotiate the bits it wants to retain with other EU governments and with the European Commission.

Senior commission sources say the home secretary, Theresa May, has not contacted Cecilia Malmstrom, one of the commissioners responsible, since last year.

Although the promise of a referendum by 2017 was seen as helpful in uniting the Conservative Party, it is deeply unhelpful to securing economic recovery. It creates uncertainty at a time when we need stability. It will act as a break on investment as companies decide it might be better to wait until the outcome is clear – knowing that Britain may become a bad place in which to site a manufacturing facility for selling to the European market. It is yet another example of the Prime Minister putting party before country.

The real choice for the British people is between a Government focused on achieving jobs and growth, which will use its influence in the EU to push for a Europe-wide focus on jobs and growth or a Government which wishes to leave the EU and retreat into a protectionist backwater. Labour will be offering the former and UKIP will be offering the latter. David Cameron knows that leaving the EU is not in Britain’s interest. As he said in his January speech:

I believe something very deeply. That Britain’s national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union and that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.

If David Cameron has a different alternative he wants to offer, he needs to write down what he is proposing and put those  proposals to the British people at the General Election. If he doesn’t know what he wants, perhaps a spell in opposition might give him an opportunity to work it out.

The Daily Post has highlighted the increase in the use of community resolutions by North Wales Police and concerns that the scheme may be being used inappropriately for violent offences.

I’m a big fan of community resolutions. The justice system can sometimes feel like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut – except that by the time the sledgehammer arrives on the scene everyone has moved on. In contrast to going to court or issuing a police caution, community resolutions require the perpetrator to face up to what they have done soon after they were caught and to make appropriate recompense to the victim. Evidence shows that community resolutions can have much more of an impact in deterring offenders from further crime, as well leaving victims more satisfied that the impact the offence had on them has been recognised and that action has been taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

The biggest criticism of policing in North Wales in recent years is that the imposition of top-down targets translated into officers taking perverse decisions which undermined public confidence. The solution to this – and to similar problems in lots of other public services – is to ensure that front line officers are expected to exercise their discretion. “Do the right thing” is the new mantra. Of course there needs to be a clear framework around decision making and clarity about what is right needs to be tested through open debate and discussion.

It would be inappropriate to discuss individual cases in public, but someone needs to look at the detail to understand what is happening and draw out the lessons for improvement. That is exactly what North Wales Police Authority did when concerns were raised over the use of restorative resolutions for violent offences. A small group of members reviewed cases to satisfy themselves that police officers had used their discretion appropriately. A report was then prepared which didn’t go into the detail but which confirmed that the members were satisfied with what they had seen.

The task of holding the police to account has now passed from now abolished Police Authority to Winston Roddick as the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner. He needs to look into the cases rather than simply saying that it would be inappropriate to interfere. Did officers exercise their  discretion  appropriately in all cases? If he takes the view that it was not, he should ask the Chief Constable to consider what action is needed. This could include providing further guidance to officers and/or further safeguards being  put in place to check case files before decisions are finalised in particular types of case. The Chief Constable might disagree and argue that the decisions made were correct or that the small number of cases where decisions were inappropriate are best dealt with through guidance to the officers concerned rather than by making the system as a whole more bureaucratic.

Either way, we should know the outcome of the review and that those responsible for police governance have their eye on the ball. This will help to build public confidence – a statement that it is not for the Commissioner to interfere instead leaves the impression that the wrong decisions are being made and nothing is being done about it.

As Chief Executive of North Wales Police Authority I did some serious thinking about the role of Commissioner and how the Government’s flawed framework could be made to work by someone who was determined to act with integrity and wanted to be inclusive. I wrote a paper on the subject which you can read here:

The Good Commissioner

When I consulted several people on drafts of the paper I was met with the same question: “So are you going to stand?” In truth I hadn’t decided to stand when I started writing the paper but the process of writing it convinced me I had something to offer. That was not to be and so now I am looking for another way to serve, but the advice remains very relevant to those who were elected last  November. If you live in North Wales and you are interested in getting involved, you might like to apply for Deputy Commissioner – closing date 30 May 2013.

Yesterday’s report from the Office of Fair Trading was no surprise to those who have looked into this issue – in particular Stella Creasy. Read Stella’s article for the Guardian commenting on the issue here. I was delighted to have Stella’s support in my campaign for Police & Crime Commissioner last autumn. After meeting with Women’s Groups from across North Wales to explore what more can be done to end violence against women, Stella, Chris Ruane MP and I met with North Wales Credit Union. Credit Unions offer a real alternative to the loan sharks and deserve our support. 

When the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats set out their coalition agreement, tackling bankers’ bonuses got an explicit mention:

We will bring forward detailed proposals for robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the financial services sector; in developing these proposals, we will ensure they are effective in reducing risk.

Three years and a lot of hand-wringing later, they have little to show for these bold words. Labour in government took action, introducing a tax on bonuses in addition to a new 50p tax rate on earnings over £150,000. The tax on bonuses has been dropped and the top-rate reduced. The problem apparently is that banking is an international market so we can’t be too firm with the bankers or they’ll all relocate to Frankfurt.

Except that we’re members of the European Union and therefore with a bit of will-power, something can be done. Faced with a fairly straightforward proposal to limit bonuses to a maximum of a year’s salary or double that if explicitly backed by shareholders, the Chancellor is squealing in horror – despite the proposal having been backed by Tory MEPs at an earlier stage. Of course that may have been before the Tories’ financial backers gave their views…

This proposal doesn’t undermine the competitiveness of the City of London: it doesn’t even curb excessive pay. It just changes the balance in remuneration to move away from excessive risk taking.

Let’s be clear: the reason pay in the financial services sector is so much higher than other sectors is not because bankers are better than the rest of us. Thomas Jefferson once said that “banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies” but it is not because banking is more dangerous or more complex than other professions.

Ten years ago, I spent an afternoon with senior managers at UBS. It was while I was working for Hackney Council and the session had been organised to help us exchange ideas and working practices. It was a useful session and I was left with a positive impression of them. But I think they learned more than we did. What we were trying to achieve was so much more complex that what they were doing. Risk management for them was one dimensional: will I make or lose money? Yes they needed to think about long term versus short term and we now know that not enough attention was paid to system-wide risks. But it is a world apart from the dilemmas which were facing Hackney Council officers every day. UBS put a lot of effort into corporate social responsibility programmes and encouraging their staff to undertake voluntary work in the community and that’s got to be a good thing. But “putting something back into the community” was much less of a concern for us, because that’s what our workforce were doing every day.

The reason top bankers are paid so much more than other professionals is because senior bankers determine their own pay.

In a free society, there will always be significant differentials in wealth and income. There are wildly different views on how much variation is fair – but what is beyond doubt is that the gap has widened massively. As the High Pay Centre set out here, the share of national income going to the top 1 per cent of the income distribution has more than doubled since 1979 to 14.5 per cent from 6 per cent.

As a society, we need to consider whether this is right. Certainly it is impossible to justify the forthcoming £2.7 billion tax break that the Government is giving this income group next month. Even if you didn’t give two hoots for fairness, it wouldn’t make economic sense. If you want to get the economy moving, a tax break for the low paid would be much more effective, because they are much more likely to spend the money in the local economy.

The banking crisis exposed the fact that the financial services sector relies on government backing to enable it to make its vast profits – so society in turn has a right to impose some tough rules on the sector.

There is a recurring theme in the attitude of Government Ministers, which is to blame foreigners. It plays well with the Tory faithful and the fact that George Osborne’s approach to economics has decisively failed, means they’re getting quite jittery. It is almost as though the reason the Tories are against is because this is an EU proposal! The European Convention on Human Rights is a frequent target, despite the fact that it was drafted by British lawyers. Earlier this week, Britain’s most senior judge warned that on the particular issue which is exercising Theresa May and Chris Grayling, withdrawing from the Court wouldn’t be enough – we would need to leave the United Nations as well.

When the IMF told the Government its economic strategy was making things worse, I wondered whether David Cameron was going to propose a referendum on leaving the world. I didn’t realise they were already thinking in that direction. David Cameron using foreign leaders as a punchbag to impress his backbenchers always risked leaving him isolated. Small wonder George Osborne finds himself without any friends at the conference table so soon afterwards.

Doesn’t it make you angry that the banks have been allowed to ride roughshod over our economy, and are still handing out bonuses by the bucket load? Don’t settle for low politics and broken promises: be more demanding.

That’s what the Liberal Democrat manifesto said in 2010. In politics as well as life, it is important to be honest about what you will do and then to deliver what you promised. Apologising for staying a load of stuff that you thought sounded good in the campaign but didn’t really intend to implement in government just won’t wash. That’s why less than half of those who voted Lib Dem at the last election intend to do so at the next.